Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Ever wanted to get even with those pesky auditors that are always making life more difficult than it has to be just to achieve some level of controlled nirvana? Well, I have just the prescription in the form of a new feature in Release 12 called “Manage Proxies” – this new feature is guaranteed to send the auditors into counseling! This new powerful feature allows Release 12 users to designate a proxy user which can then assume, takeover, inherit, (insert your favorite verb here ______) all, yes ALL, the accesses possessed by the granting user. According to the Release Control Document for Release 12, the rationale behind adding this feature is to allow administrative assistants the ability to manage approvals for their too busy executives; however, there are other ways to accomplish this within the Approvals Management Engine (AME) that doesn’t bring all the controls baggage with it like the “Manage Proxies” function does. To setup a proxy user, all it takes is the assignment of the “Manage Proxies” role which then causes the “Manage Proxies” selection to appear when Preferences are selected from the granting user’s home page (see below). Clicking on the “Manage Proxies” link takes the granting user to a page where one or more proxy users can be added.

Once the “apply” button is hit, then auditor heartburn occurs! The next time the proxy user(s) logs in he/she has “Switch User” displayed in the upper right hand corner of their home page as shown below.

All the proxy user has to do is “Switch User” and bingo, the proxy user now has all the responsibilities from the granting user and can masquerade as that user until the proxy is revoked by the granting user which is shown below.

Of course the proxy user can exercise a very deep philosophical action called “Return to Self” which reverts the proxy user to their original list of responsibilities, but until self actualization occurs, Release 12 schizophrenia exists in all its glory! The only problem is that the mental health hit is not realized by the proxy user nor the granting user – but the poor auditor which discovers this new feature in Release 12 called “Manage Proxies” – enjoy and don’t say you weren’t warned!!!!

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Oracle has given an old friend a facelift in Release 12. Among some of the nips and tucks you will find the ability to create custom selection sets, comparison reports between multiple environments and a new process flow that promotes “Transformation” to a process all by itself. In addition to congratulating “Transformation” on it’s new found level of achievement, let’s dive in and discover what the new and improved Release 12 version of iSetup has in store for us, ok?

The integration between iRepository and iSetup has been strengthened in that any interface and/or API that is defined to iRepository can be defined to iSetup which is the underpinning for creating custom selection sets within iSetup. This opens up the playbook for iSetup by providing access to data objects never before experienced and if iSetup can get to those data objects, that means migration nirvana can be achieved between environments for those objects. What is even more impressive is how Oracle has reinforced iRepository with all the open API’s and interfaces in and out of the E-Business Suite footprint. This allows for a higher degree of reach for iSetup into data objects heretofore unreachable.

Next consider running a comparison report, but only being able to run the comparison against one environment? How counter-intuitive is that? Doesn’t comparison infer checking one environment against another? Well, now the comparison reporting function does just that, it can be pointed to multiple environments and behold, comparison deltas are reported – how cool is that?

Lastly, let’s turn our attention back to our friend “Transformation” which just got promoted. The process flow for 11i iSetup is below:

And now here is the new and improved process flow for Release 12:

You will notice that you don’t have to run a load process any longer in order to perform a transformation of your data objects.

One important note on iSetup that hasn’t changed is that the source and target environments must be at the same version of E-Business Suite, keeping iSetup geared for implementations and migration of configuration changes between environments.

Would enjoy hearing about your experiences with iSetup and get your reactions to the Release 12 improvements.

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